Tips for Sustainability?

jnbaratta592

Hello!
Jeremy here.

Looking for advice on sustainability- both with eating and tracking eating, water intake and exercise.

Questions to ponder:
Is having friends on MFP helpful?
What’s an underutilized part of this app?
Anything else.. please help Thanks!

MissBraeBee

I found once I really started logging absolutely everything you eat, you pick the habit very fast. As for exercise and water, I would suggest setting alarms on your phone and finding routines you enjoy on Youtube or you can even make your own on the cellphone app, not on the website for some reason. I suggest meal prepping as well! And yes, having friends and seeing them succeed as well as struggle shows you how its now that easy for everyone, it makes it less of a pain, it just shows you everyone has their high and low moments

alisampm

jnbaratta592 wrote: »

Hello!
Is having friends on MFP helpful?

Hi Jeremy, I absolutely think that having friends on here is helpful, both for encouragement and when you have questions along the journey.

You NEED to have people around you when you are attempting to change your life. People who are on the same journey as you and thus can encourage you on when you fall and applaud your successes when you thrive.

For some this community is their friend/family group, but I think more often than not, we have to create a new community as we change.

As lovely as my family and friends are, I feel embarrassed sharing the day to day of this journey… for a few reasons:

• I have failed in this journey before. I have lost weight before. I have gained it all back. So, it is nice to start with a fresh slate.
• I don’t want to bore my family/friends with the daily updates of – I lost .2 pounds!!! or I just put on size 14 jeans for the first time in a decade!! or I just ate a crap ton of cheesecake!
• I don’t want them to feel shame if they are not pursuing this right now. I had seasons of my life where I couldn’t stand talking about diets or weight because I wasn’t ready. I don’t want to assume people are ready to hear the ins and the outs when I know I wasn’t always ready.

So I created a new community on My Fitness Pal and it has been so key to my ability to stick with it even when it’s hard.

goal06082021

• Make it as easy as possible to make good choices day-to-day.
  I do this by prepping breakfast and lunch in advance, and planning my dinners to yield leftovers, so I can copy a meal from one day to the next and pre-log as much of my day as possible. Then I just have to stick to the plan, which isn't hard. It's amazing the difference I feel when I'm eating something that's already been counted and logged and I don't have to think about it, I can just enjoy the delicious food I made, versus trying to make decisions about food when I'm already hungry. I'm prone to what I like to call "analysis paralysis" - if there's too many options I'll just freeze up and not be able to choose any because there are too many factors to consider in making a decision. So I do all of my analyzing and deciding in advance, at a time when I'm not hungry.
  
• No temporary changes.
  I don't want to do this again. So I'm not making any changes to my lifestyle that I can't sustain indefinitely. To become a person who weighs X lbs with Y physique, I must learn to eat and train like a person who weighs X lbs with Y physique. Any change I make, I make with the intention of doing that forever, not just until I reach GW. I started working out first thing in the morning, with the intention of making it a forever-habit, and I've been going strong for 6+ months now. There are no off-limits foods, moderation in all things. I'm 5'2" and female so all the diet blogs and stuff out there want me on 1200 calories per day to lose weight - to hell with that, I'm losing about a pound a week pretty consistently on double that, because: I don't want to do this again. So I'm doing it slowly and doing it in a way that will make it as easy as possible on myself to maintain when the time comes. The daily calorie difference between loss and maintenance for me is equivalent to, like, a Snickers bar - maintenance isn't going to look all that different than my life does now.
  
• Community is important.
  YMMV, I find it important and beneficial to have people I can talk to about all aspects of this journey. MFP has made up the bulk of that community, because most of my IRL support system are not people who Get It. People here? People here Get It.

jennypapage

Having friends here made no difference whatsoever for me. But then again i'm an introvert The only person i looked for encouragement when i needed it was/is my husband.

As far as sustainability goes, don't cut out any foods out of your life, unless you plan on giving them up forever. Eating them less often is a better option. I only eat pizza once every 3-4 months, but when i really want it, i buy it and enjoy every single piece.

annliz23

Having friends has kept me on target.
Logging food has helped me keep on focus so I dont over eating.